Women Urge Eased Halacha Rules

December 19, 1972

LONDON (Dec. 18)

Jewish women have petitioned rabbinical authorities to ease the hard-ships imposed on women by the present interpretations of halacha. Mrs. Alfred Rubens, past president of the international Council of Jewish Women, told the Jewish Telegraphic Agency today that petitions on behalf of 500,000 Jewish women throughout the world have been sent to rabbinical courts, rabbinical organizations and to individual rabbis.

The petitions charge that women suffer disabilities under halacha with regard to divorce; halitza (the release of a widow so that she can remarry); polygamy, where it still exists among Jews; and agunah, the term for a women whose husband has disappeared but has not been declared dead. They also protested unfairness to women in connection with private property. The petitions asked for a rabbinical assembly to be convened to study these problems with a view to alleviating the hardships.